I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to digital images, and more particularly, to the viewing of digital images.
II. Description of Related Art
The scanning of paper documentation into digital images is well known. Some of the advantages of digital or electronic documents over paper documents include reduced storage space, immediate and simple copying, quick retrieval, easy sharing through electronic transfer (e.g., e-mail), persistent and non-volatile nature of a digital format, and the conservation of natural resources such as trees. While a completely digital office is not a reality for most businesses, it is rare to find a business that doesn't rely heavily on digital documents in the ordinary course of its business.
For example, property owners, land developers, architects, and document management professionals scan active and historical documents relating to properties, such as building blueprints, floor plans, and riser diagrams, to save space and enable more efficient copying and distribution of the documents. However, once a drawing is scanned, the scale information on the drawing is no longer valid when the digital version of the paper drawing is viewed on a monitor or display device. In particular, the digital image of the drawing is typically captured as an digital image having a certain pixel by pixel dimension with no direct relationship to the scale information provided on the original drawing. Thus, when the image is viewed using a monitor or display, it is virtually impossible for the viewer to obtain true measurement information from the rendered image because the scale of the paper drawing, for instance, one inch equals three feet, is not valid for the rendered image on the monitor or display.
Accordingly, some of the utility inherent in paper documents is lost when the documents are digitized. This lost utility is particularly problematic in the certain cases, such as with architectural drawings, when it is desirable to determine the measurements of a room, the length of a wall, or the square footage of a section of a floor, which is often the main reason for viewing the drawings. In addition, when annotating the digital drawing, it is often desirable to annotate to scale.
Thus, there exists a unsatisfied need in the industry for a means to view a digital drawing with the ability to determine a true dimensional characteristic of the rendered subject matter.